The Science of a Meaningful Life: Building Compassion, Creating Well-Being

This one-day seminar will cover strategies for building resilience, reducing stress, and strengthening relationships with colleagues, clients, family, and friends

Venue: Berkeley, CA

Date: February 9, 2009

Course Description
This one-day seminar will cover strategies for building resilience, reducing stress, and strengthening relationships with colleagues, clients, family, and friends. Drawing on cutting-edge research from psychology and neuroscience, renowned UC Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner will highlight the strong connections between happiness, compassion, and altruism, showing how a meaningful life isn’t just good, but good for you. His presentation will reveal the health and social benefits that come from practicing trust, empathy, gratitude, kindness, and other positive behaviors. For instance, cultivating feelings of gratitude have been shown to boost people’s health, make them happier, and improve their relationships. He will also provide a deeper understanding of people who have trouble forming relationships, such as those with social disorders like autism.

The seminar will feature a short presentation by legendary psychologist Paul Ekman, hailed as one of the 20th century’s most influential psychologists. Building on his groundbreaking work on emotion and facial expressions, and on his recent collaboration with the Dalai Lama, Dr. Ekman will discuss various forms of empathy and compassion, including the prospect of “global compassion”—concern for and commitment to people beyond one’s immediate family or community. His talk will further help attendees understand the paths—and the challenges—to developing a meaningful life.

Attendees Will Learn To:
• Be conversant in the latest research on social and emotional intelligence, drawing from neuroscience and positive psychology
• Understand how to apply this research to personal and professional relationships
• Empathize and communicate more effectively with family members, friends, clients, colleagues, and others by being more attuned to their social and emotional cues
• Be better equipped to diagnose different disorders like depression and autism
• Develop effective ways to handle stress, build resilience, and cultivate happiness in their personal and professional lives

The Greater Good Speaker Series
The Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) is an interdisciplinary research center, based at UC Berkeley, that explores the roots of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior.
Its “Science of a Meaningful Life” speaker series is designed to help audiences apply groundbreaking scientific findings to their personal and professional lives, especially for mental health workers and other care providers. Each event in the series features a day-long talk by a member of the GGSC, including Research Director Dacher Keltner, and a guest presentation by a renowned expert in the field of social and emotional well-being.

Co-Sponsors
The Greater Good Science Center, the Quality of Life Foundation, R. Cassidy Seminars, and the International House at UC Berkeley.